


System Reset

by PurpleArrowzandLeather



Category: Tron (Movies)
Genre: Clu is a jerk, F/M, Hurt, Sam is stubborn, Second Chances, editing? What editing?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 11:16:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20357596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleArrowzandLeather/pseuds/PurpleArrowzandLeather
Summary: Alan convinces Sam to take him to the Grid to satisfy his curiosity. Sam is exhausted, but more than willing to find out what reintegration did to the system.





	System Reset

“You can’t be serious, Alan.”

Alan sighs, shifting on the couch in Sam’s apartment as he rubs his chin. “I am. You said that Kevin reintegrated with Clu, so the system should be safe. We can go look around.”

Sam pauses for a second in his pacing of the area that he considers his kitchen. “You... actually believe me?”

Alan tilts his head. “Why wouldn’t I? You said you saw it.”

“Even to me, this still sounds a  little nuts . If  Quorra wasn’t sleeping upstairs, I don’t know that  _ I _ would even believe this.”

“But it explains everything that I’ve been asking myself for the last twenty years. Where Flynn went. What he wanted with Tron after he borrowed him from the old ENCOM system. What you’re describing fits the questions that I need answers to.”

“Okay, I know why I want to go back, but why do you want to come?”

With a shake of his head, Alan smiles. “I want to see it. Everything we worked for in the old days.”

Sam runs a hand through his hair, resuming his pacing. “I just don’t know that we’re going to find the world that dad created or just... a shattered memory of it. Reintegrating with  Clu had to have been destructive.”

“What are you saying? That it’s gone?”

“No, I just mean that-” Sam closes his eyes. “We don’t know what we’re going to find. If it’s dangerous, I don’t want you in there.”

Alan smiles. “If it’s that bad, then I don’t want you in there either.”

“You can’t stop me, Alan. I have to find out what happened to Tron.”

“Then you’re going to have to take me with you. I don’t want you going alone.”

Sam smirks. “I’ll have  Qourra , if she decides she wants to return. ”

“ Then you’ll have me, too. Let’s just say I’m trying to make up for not being there when you were growing up. You don’t have to be alone, Sam. I may be a crappy father, but... I want to be here for you.”

“You know, when I ate with dad on the Grid, he said almost the same thing.”

Alan blinks. “You ate food on the Grid?”

Sam shrugs, moving around the couch and picking up his laundry. “It’s just a composition file. Like a recipe.  I don’t know that it actually did anything for me. I was a little bit busy trying to get back home without getting killed by  Clu .”

“See, but now I have to go there. I want to see it all. Food. Your dad’s little mountain house. All of it.”

The young Flynn groans, rubbing his brow. “You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”

Alan smirks. “Nope.”

Sam grabs his keys and his leather jacket. “Well, if you’re so dead set on going, then I’ll go wake  Quorra . We can be gone for...” He counts up on his fingers, mouthing his math. “Two weeks in Grid time. We can’t keep the I/O open that long, but I can rig the laser with a timer to reopen at the end of... 274 millicycles.”

“I don’t understand your math.”

“It’s just a conversion of cycles into hours. It’s a little weird, but I can teach you.”

Alan grabs his coat, waiting for Sam to get Quorra. He’s been trying to talk Sam into letting him come along ever since Sam explained everything. He laid it all out, and now Alan is dying for a taste.

That’s not to say that he’s not cautious, but he is very interested to find out what Flynn obsessed over right up until he disappeared. If the Grid is supposedly safe, he wants to see it. To see what he allegedly helped create,

“Let’s go.”

Alan gives himself a shake. He lost track of time in his musing. “All right, I’m ready. I’d assume you’re taking your motorcycle?”

“Yup.”

Sam almost can’t believe it. Alan actually thinks what Sam told him about the Grid is true.  Quorra is  humanized data. He’s going back to the Grid a mere sixteen hours after coming  home . He would never admit it, but he passed out as soon as he got home.  Quorra didn’t know what to do. He feels fantastic now, but the Grid is an exhausting place. Calling Alan was like an after-afterthought. 

As usual, the arcade is dark when they arrive. Sam flips on the lights and  Quorra leads the way towards the Tron game. She hands him a duffle, pointing the way and waiting for Sam to pass by. She grabs his sleeve.

“Good luck.”

Sam smiles sadly at her. He had given  Quorra the choice to stay or to go, but she told him she’d decide when they got there. He can’t really blame her for staying. 

“We’ll be back before you know it, Q.”

“I know.”

He grasps her hand before skipping down the skinny stairwell. Alan is standing down in the small room, confusion and awe in his expression. Sam smirks. It looks like for  once, he knows something Alan doesn’t.

“Ready?”

“Where’s Quorra?”

Sam taps on the computer screen, shaking his head. “She’s not coming. That’s why you’ve got the duffle. That has our pre-written batons and make-files that we’ll need.”

“Make-files like what?”

Sam shrugs. “Food. A chair, I don’t know. Just... building blocks for things that might become necessary.”

Alan doesn’t answer that, but something is telling hi m that Sam is expecting trouble. He isn’t sure what kind of trouble could be around, but he’ll trust Sam’s instincts. Any experience, loss or no, gives his opinions weight.

Sam activates the laser. Alan is confused when nothing happens at first, but Sam simply settles at the desk. He feels as if he’s being squeezed around the middle before he staggers to the side. Sam glances around, a smile lifting his features. 

“Here we are. Right back where we started.”

Alan looks down at his hands, a slow breath leaving his mouth when he finds that everything seems normal. “That... felt just a little weird. Are you sure we...?” He trails off when he looks up, finding a very grey version of the corner in front of the arcade. “ _ Oh _ .”

The older man is awed, but Sam isn’t so distracted. He pulls Alan into an alley, eyes tracking a pair of Black Guards across the street. His light suit blends better with the building than Alan’s street clothing. He forgot about that. Sam isn’t sure how to get him a light suit without getting caught. 

“Come on. We’re  gonna head towards the  middle of the  city to find out what’s happening on the Grid, then the Outlands.  Quorra sent us with a map, so it should be simple enough to find as long as the light runner is where they left it.”

“That’s a pretty big if.”

Sam huffs, tugging his disk out for good measure. “Isn’t it always with us Flynns?”

“True enough, Sam.”

Watching Sam slink along in the shadows, an honest-to-goodness identity disk in his hand, Alan is suddenly struck by the surreal turn his life has taken. He’s inside a virtual world. 

Alan is surprised throughout the trek to notice that he doesn’t tire. He actually feels physically healthier than he has in years. Sam didn’t mention the correction, but maybe Sam wouldn’t notice quite as much. 

“Alan. Stop staring and follow. We  gotta get  deeper into the  city.”

He didn’t realize he’d stopped, but clearly Sam is in more of a hurry than Alan thought. Not knowing what the current state of the Grid is makes him nervous. Sam doesn’t know who or what will be trying to kill them.

“There’s the light runner.”

Alan blinks at the vehicle, the wide-set wheels and light lines stark against the dark sky. 

“You think that’s  cool, you should see a light cycle. Now, those? Those are fun. I mean, less fun when a Dark Side Tron is trying to kill you, but the idea is there.”

The thought is a sobering one. The concept that someone could do that to his Tron makes him wonder what horrible forces are out there. What can one program do to another on the Grid?

“So... what do we do with the light runner?”

“For now? Collapse it into a baton. We need to find a program who isn’t loyal to  Clu and ask what’s going on.”

Alan puffs out a breath watching as Sam turns a huge vehicle into a tiny stick . “What are the chances of that? Realistically, if you don’t mind.”

“Low, but we’ve got to find out what’s going on.”

Risky as the plan is, Alan can’t say that he has a better one. From what Sam told him,  Clu rectified the majority of any programs he could get his hands on, which could mean that thousands of programs are still unaware that he’s dead. Or... reintegrated. Whatever.

Sam heads for the city, his surrogate father close behind him. He gazes around, sentries standing along the majority of the corners. He isn’t quite sure that he’s got the Grid skills his father has, so resetting them may not be an option. Alan, on the other hand.... That just might be possible. 

“Alan, do you think you could mess with the Black Guard’s disk like my dad did? Do you... know if you’ve got admin privileges?”

“I have no idea, but I don’t think the right one is to give it a trial run on a Black Guard, or whatever that’s supposed to be. If I get it wrong, he could turn around and kill us.”

Sam chuckles. “Aw, come on, Alan. I wouldn’t let him do that.”

“If they catch us, you may not have a choice.”

“Save your sacrificial bull, Alan. I don’t want you deciding you know what’s best for me. I haven’t let you do that my entire life, and I’m not about to start now.”

Alan sighs. “Tell me we’re not going to start this again. Especially not now.”

“I guess that’s not for me to decide. You  gonna keep telling me to leave you behind at the first sign of danger?”

The older man sighs. “I suppose not. You won’t listen to me anyway.”

Sam smirks triumphantly, pulling his disk from its port and peering around a corner. “Well, I guess one thing has changed since I was little. Learned  somethin ’ that finally stuck.”

The comment is off-handed, and a little hurtful if he thinks about it, but he lets it slide. Sometimes, he does wonder about just how jaded and cynical Sam has really become, and it’s at times like these that he sees it.

“ Wait.”

Alan is so distracted in his musing that he bumps into Sam. “What is it?”

“There’s a program up ahead. He’s....” Sam pauses, watching as the lines flicker from orange to blue again. “He’s glitching. You stay here. I’m gonna go check it out.”

“No, Sam-”

Sam ignores Alan, moving forwards and approaching the figure with caution. The program glitches again, pitching forward and crawling a few feet. A familiar growl makes Sam stop in his tracks, taking in the lines to pick out anything  definitive . It’s Tron, all right. How he got out of the Sea and back to the city like this is a mystery.

Alan comes up behind him. “What do you want to do?”

“We’ll follow him. His passive scanners have probably already pinged us, but it’ll be all right.”

“Passive scanners? So, he’s a security program?”

Sam nods, watching Tron as he climbs back to his feet. “The best on the Grid.”

Alan finds that a little hard to believe, but he’ll follow Sam’s lead until he figures out how to survive here. Sam moves quietly behind Tron, trying not to upset him if he can help it. The program doesn’t seem to take much notice, stumbling along until he finds a little hole in the wall. He slips inside, the door not quite closing behind him in his haste. 

Sam crawls in after him, Alan going in next.

Once inside, he finds a small dwelling that looks like it’s been used recently. Then again.... Dust isn’t a thing here, and neither is food. Could’ve been years ago.

“State your intentions.” a gravelly voice says.

“We’re here to help you.”

A figure reveals itself by the wall, staggering over to a couch and clutching his head. The glitching eases after a long moment and the program looks to Sam. “I know your face.”

“Yeah. My name is Sam Flynn. We’ve met before.”

A rattling noise leaves Tron. “U-User.”

“I prefer Sam.” he answers, stepping forwards to offer Tron a capsule of energy. He crouches in front of him, placing a hand on his knee when he glitches again. “Drink this. It’ll help.”

Tron doesn’t protest, even if he does hesitate before drinking. “Thank you.” The struggle he was having before seems to calm, so Tron registers Alan’s presence more fully. “Your companion. He’s a User, too.”

“Right, him. Well.... I’m not sure how to tell you this besides giving it to you straight. That’s Alan, your creator.”

Tron stares at him for a long moment before letting his helmet drop back. “Alan-1?”

“I... haven’t gone by that in a while.”

Sam pats his knee to get his attention. “Hey, I’ve got a quick question for you, all right, buddy? Just need to know if you have the answer to something.”

Tron nods. “Of course,  SamFlynn .”

“Do you know what happened to my dad and Clu?”

Tron is quiet before nodding again. “When I came around in the Sea, my programming was attempting to revert.” He flinches at another glitch, a growl rising from his throat that he can’t stop. “ KevinFlynn reintegrating with Clu reset the whole system. I’m... sorry, Sam. He’s gone.”

“So, we’ve been avoiding Black Guards all this time for nothing?”

“I have no idea. All I know is that the Sea threw off the reset for me and now I’m stuck like this.” He clenches his hand into a fist as orange flickers back over his circuits. 

Alan comes closer, drawing Tron’s attention. “I may be able to help with that.”

With a cautious glance back to Sam, he pulls his disks free to give them to Alan. While they wait, Sam talks to him about the User world and all sorts of incredible ideas. It’s a good distraction, even if half of it makes no sense to him.

“Can... I go there?”

“I’ve got my dad’s disk, so it’s a real possibility. Since we know that the Grid is safe, we can get back to the I/O before it closes. See how that works out.”

Alan makes a face, but he doesn’t say a word. 

“Is  Quorra there, then?”

“Yeah.”

Tron looks to Alan, noting the frustration on his face as he stares at Tron’s code. The crease in his brow deepens for a moment before easing. “The Sea’s corruption kept the cleanse from reaching your processors, but I’ve removed it. You’ll... still remember everything, but you’ll be you again.”

“And then... I can go with you?”

Alan is surprised, but his smile following is warm, a hand reaching out of its own accord to land on Tron’s shoulder. “Whatever you want, Tron. Wherever you want to go, we’ll get you home.”

Tron looks down at his hands, looking more like a young child than a warrior. “You promise?”

“I promise, Tron. Whatever you want.”

The lost program nods to himself, looking up at both of them with a determined gleam in his eye. “I want to see it. I want to see the world of the Users as long as you’re certain the Grid is safe.”

Alan offers him a hand. “Home it is.”

Tron takes the hand, ready to leave his world behind. It’ll be hard to look forward after all that  Clu did to him, but leaving the Grid just might be a step in the proper direction. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?


End file.
